[grow]

From one cell to two then four then eight. Nine months later, there you have it: a perfect little person. Who can help but marvel at that? But there's more to it than just biology and its miraculous gymnastic feats--genes tumbling forward from one generation to the next. Then there's the ineffable part that can't be explained by science or logic. The heart has its own language, for which there are no words. It's the way my pulse picks up speed whenever I see you, the unbelievable ferocity of the love that I feel. For the better part of a year, we were two people under one skin, and now it's the one year anniversary of the day you left my body for the larger world. I grew with and for you, baby, and then I shrank again. Within a few months, I looked like myself again, but never again would I be the girl I was before I became a mother. Every day you change, and I can see it on your body, the way you lengthen and widen and strengthen and grow. My own growth is made of subtler stuff, not imprinted in the bone. (dalia)